Much to brood upon

The unspeakable ... Andrew Flintoff ponders surrendering the Ashes after only 15 months in possession of the precious urn.Photo: Getty Images

THREE bricklayers are standing on a building site in north
London, drinking mugs of tea in the early morning gloom and
discussing English cricket's latest disaster.

"It's too middle-class," says Dave Boakes, 53. "We need to get a
bit of workin' class desperation back into it. You don't see kids
playing cricket in the street any more.

"We've invented just about every game  cricket, football,
rugby  and everyone can play 'em better than us now," he
says. "Everything's gone pear-shaped."

His workmate, Lyndon Moore, 56, agrees. "The Asian (Indian and
Pakistani) community, they're playing, we need to get that culture
coming through," says Mr Moore, who comes from Luton, the same town
as spinner Monty Panesar.

"And what about a few Australians? There's plenty of them over
'ere. Mind you, they're all in bars, aren't they?"

The same conversations will be happening across England today,
as the country returns to one of its favourite themes: what is
wrong with its sport?

Early yesterday morning Mr Boakes had turned on the TV and
groaned, though he wasn't surprised. The Ashes were back in
Australia and the blissful summer of 2005, when England regained
the urn, seemed an age away. Fifteen months later, the bricklayers
and many of their country folk agree: Australia is too tough,
England too soft.

"Ruthless Aussies regain the Ashes," said the BBC in its
post-match headline. "I cannot recall seeing a team so driven and
focused," said its correspondent, Jonathan Agnew, from Perth, who
uttered his fear of a 5-0 whitewash.

"It's a mental thing, a psychological defeat," said Richard
Johnson, a 41-year old executive in the welfare-to-work sector who
follows the cricket avidly.

"There's a difference, isn't there, between the competitive,
fiery spirit of Australian sporting teams and the Brits? I think we
don't appear to live for the game in the way the Aussies do. We
don't have the hunger for it."

This wasn't just a problem in cricket but in all sports, Mr
Johnson said. "It's the difference between (tennis player) Tim
Henman being in the top 10 and never winning. It's the ability to
get across the finishing line."

Mr Johnson, originally a Yorkshireman, said England needed the
spirit of Yorkshire cricketers such as Fred Trueman and Geoff
Boycott. "I mean, our best bowler is Steve Harmison. He once said
he would rather be watching a game of football than playing
cricket. What hope have we got?"